Frontier blazes ahead with Pluris investment
Companies plant terabit router tests
ELIZABETH STARR MILLER
Frontier Communications could gain greater control over its destiny with the announcement last week that its venture capital arm, Frontier Ventures, is investing $3 million in Pluris, a developer of multistage terabit routers for the Internet backbone.
Frontier's GlobalCenter unit, which has been one of the first to deploy technologies such as multiprotocol label switching, will partner with Pluris to develop and test the multistage terabit router, which Pluris plans to release in early 2000.
The Pluris terabit network router could enable Frontier and other service providers to reduce costs and management while still providing integrated communications services over the Internet. By taking part in the development of the router, "we can set priorities, and that [gives] us an advantage," said Jonathan Heiliger, senior vice president of Frontier Ventures. "As pioneers, what we will gain is being able to see it happen. We will guide development to provide our services sooner."
"If we didn't have this connection with Pluris, we'd have to deal with Cisco [Systems] or Lucent [Technologies], who are several months behind in converging technologies development," Heiliger said.
The privately held company's latest round of financing will give it a greater lead in the technology race, said Sam Halabi, vice president of marketing at Pluris. "The $41 million will last a while," he said, adding that the partnership with Frontier will "help us bring a product to market that meets the requirements of the service providers and telcos."
The investment also should not limit Pluris' ability to sell to other carriers, said Mat Steinberg, director of transport and optical networking at RHK. "You've seen UUNet invest in Juniper, and Juniper is selling to other providers as well. So with that as a baseline, I don't see that this would [limit Pluris]."
The actual percentage Frontier owns is undisclosed, but its $3 million is part of $41 million raised overall by Pluris this round. Other new investors include Chase Capital Partners, Worldview Technology Partners and Deutsche Bank.
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internettelephony.com click on AM report 9/20/99.
After today I imagine it will be in the archives. |
